


i will get there

by QuidProCrow



Series: yet i live [1]
Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demons, Depression, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, because laura palmer's life is anything but easy, i wrote this before the finale and weirdly enough it's applicable, your general twin peaks level of existential dread
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 19:54:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11996838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuidProCrow/pseuds/QuidProCrow
Summary: Laura Palmer lived.





	i will get there

**Author's Note:**

> so funnily enough, I really did write this back in may when s3 first started, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but after last night’s finale, you know what????? who cares!! who knows anything!!! so here it is.  
> there's some references to the Missing Pieces in here, specifically the muffin scene, and also the idea that the ring prevents possession instead of drawing someone back into the lodge/denoting possession/the million other things the freaking ring does 
> 
> title from ['what you know' by two door cinema club](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpCcJY-rJSs), for some reason

who even knows what happened that night? laura palmer doesn't. she guesses she should know. but she doesn't. sheriff truman asks her over and over again what happened that night and laura doesn't know. ronette hasn't woken up yet, truman tells her. her father is barely alive. her mother is in shock. you have to tell me what happened, laura, he says. 

she tells him she doesn't know. she can't remember and she doesn't know if she wants to. 

(and if she has vague flashes of her hands tearing apart a man in a denim jacket, and her screams sometimes ring in her ears, then that's for her to think about, and no one else.) 

 

laura doesn't sleep for days. she stares at the ceiling of the hospital room and pinches herself when her vision blurs, because it can't have been that easy. he can't just be gone, just like that. if laura knows anything, it's that nothing is that easy. she doesn't want to be responsible for bringing him back and hurting someone else. if she's awake then she's her. then everyone else is okay. she still has the ring, and she twists it around her finger and shakes and shakes and shakes and never takes it off, but she doesn't know if it's enough, if she trusts it. 

she drifts off sometime on the fifth day, and jerks awake with a gasp. she's still in the hospital. the windows aren't open. she looks at herself in a mirror and sees her face. she's all there. everyone else is all there. 

bob is not there. 

laura starts sobbing, and she doesn't stop for a long time.

 

she spends weeks and weeks getting the taste of blood and cocaine out of her. and then there’s nothing left at all. 

 

donna wants to talk, and james just wants to hold her, and they don't _understand_ that all laura wants to do is sit and stare at her hands and try to convince herself that she must be lucky to be alive, because all she thinks about is how much less effort it would be to just be anything else. 

she thought she wouldn't have to pretend anymore, that no one would expect all that much of her now, but everyone still _wants_ so much from her, and she hates it, or she thinks she would if she could feel anything. _you were such a brave girl,_ everyone tells her, and she wants them all to get that smile off their faces, because she _wasn't_. she's _not_. she doesn't want to be touched and she doesn't want to be looked at and she just wants to try and figure out what she's supposed to do now. she can't wrap her head around anything. everything she used to do feels stupid and fake or hurts too much to think about. 

she doesn't go to the roadhouse, so jacques renault doesn't try to catch her eye. she barely leaves her house, so she doesn't have to worry about running into leo johnson, or anyone, really. she stays home and donna brings over her homework for a while until she realizes laura's not doing it. bobby doesn't want to see her, which is good, because she shouldn't see him. she doesn't hear from josie packard. she thinks for a long time about johnny horne. ben horne sends audrey to see her, and they just look at each other until audrey gets up and leaves. james tries to call her, and she lets the phone ring and ring and ring. 

someone asks her to talk to jacoby, says it'd be good for her. laura thinks she could laugh at that, but she doesn't. 

 

ronette wakes up. laura goes to visit and sits beside her. it's the only thing she willingly leaves the house for. 

"what did you do?" ronette asks, wide-eyed. "how did we get out? how—"

"i don't know," laura says. "i don't know." 

ronette looks at her, but it's not that piercing stare james gives her, it's ronette's soft, doe-eyed gaze, so it doesn't feel bad. ronette was there, ronette gets it, a little. laura still can't forgive herself for the fact that ronette was there, but at least someone almost _gets it_. she's grateful all the same. 

"who was that man, laura?" ronette says.

laura shakes her head. "he wasn't a man," she says. "he was something else." 

 

her brown shoes are soft and silent against the hospital hallway when she leaves, and she wants to run so she can hear herself and then curl up and never move again so she doesn't have to think about herself either. it's hard to figure out which one sounds better. 

bobby is at the end of the hallway. he can’t be here for her, laura isn’t even here anymore, and she doesn’t even want to know why he’s at the hospital. "laura," he says, a little breathless. 

_bobby briggs,_ she'd say, she'd sing it with a short grin, if she was a different person, if she was the girl of a few weeks ago instead of the shell of this one. she doesn't even know what to do with bobby anymore, what to say, how to pretend. 

"i didn't know you'd left," he says. "here. the hospital, i mean." he clears his throat and looks her over carefully. "you—you okay, laura?" like he almost doesn't want to ask. 

_what a stupid question,_ laura thinks, and she'd say it, but she shouldn't. she should apologize, is what she should do, do something, say _anything,_ but laura is so tired. it drags at her bones. 

she doesn't say anything. 

 

her parents are not the same people. laura knows that, at least. her family has never been perfect but it's maybe not even a family now. it's three people, three ghosts, haunting the same house. they aren't pretending they can go back to what they had before, at least. at least there's that. they all know something happened, even if they aren't sure what. 

it still hurts somewhere. it stings hard in her chest because she just wanted her life back, she wanted her family back, she wanted to look at her parents and her father without feeling sick, and she can't, she still can't. her father won't look at her and her mother doesn't look at anything. she doesn't see much of them at all. she'll catch the smell of her mother's cigarettes, hear the long shuffle of her father's footsteps down the hall, but she rarely sees them, like they don't want to be near her. 

_did i do the right thing,_ she asks herself, and she doesn't know the answer to that question. she thought she was alive but she doesn't know if this is living. it's something. she just doesn't know what it is. 

 

laura feels trapped in twin peaks. 

 

"i don't get it," donna says, when laura tells her she's leaving. 

laura looks out the window. "what's there to get," she says. "i'm leaving. it's not rocket science, donna."

"where are you gonna go?"

"i don't know," laura says. "somewhere else."

"you're not gonna tell me?" 

"i probably wouldn't tell you even if i did know."

"i'd come with you," donna says quietly. 

laura scoffs. "and do what? follow me around like you do here? wish you were me? a fucked-up girl who can't do anything right?" she doesn't know what makes her say it, why she lets herself take the empty anger and frustration inside her out on donna. 

donna starts to cry, that soft sniffle where her face falls and she stares at the floor of the hayward living room. 

laura closes her eyes. "don't be like that, donna," she says, but there's no venom behind it. it comes out hoarse and quiet. laura's tired of hurting her. 

"i'm—i'm sorry," donna says, wiping her face on the edge of her sleeve. 

"don't be sorry," laura whispers. 

_are you my—are you my best friend?_ laura had asked her. she remembers that, vivid and sharp in her mind, the horror that had crawled over her skin. 

_of course,_ donna had said, because she was. she had been. when they thought they could pretend things were okay. laura's not in the business of pretending anymore, and donna shouldn't be either, and she'll miss donna like an ache in her chest but she thinks it'll be better for both of them if they don't see each other anymore. 

she couldn't stand it, if donna asked her that question again. _why do you do it?_

why had she done it? because it was _fun_ , laura thinks, because she wanted it and had it and then everyone told her she was wrong and warped and shouldn't _want_ , because she wanted to try and to know and someone cut her open instead, and then she couldn't separate it out from what she wanted to do and what she'd felt she had to do, what she deserved, what people gave her and she forced herself to take because okay, that was how it worked, she guessed. the world pushed her down and told her what it did to people like her. then she'd tried to take it back and now she has nothing. 

_i don't want you to be like me,_ laura had told her. she still doesn't. donna should live a quiet life, one that doesn't involve demons or trouble or laura. especially laura. 

"what i wanted," donna says softly, "was your strength, laura."

 _and i wanted yours,_ laura thinks. _all your strength, all your kindness._ she looks back at donna. "i'll miss you," she says. "i really will." laura owes her that much. 

"i'll miss you too. more than anything." donna sighs, twists her fingers together. "before you go," she says, "you want a muffin?"

laura wants so badly to smile. she tries, but she can't do it. "seven whole huckleberries, donna?"

"and counting." 

laura shakes her head. she wants to hug donna, just like she used to, but she doesn't think she has it in her. she just gets up and shrugs instead. "bye, muffin," she says. 

donna smiles, her mouth trembling. "bye, muffin." 

 

her mother always seems to be shaking. not just now, laura thinks, but she always was. sarah palmer's hands, her mouth, her head, her shoulders, her eyes. she leans against the doorway to the living room and pulls the cigarette out of her mouth.

"are you—" sarah begins, and then she stops. her eyes dart around the room, like she's looking for something. "do you need anything? anything at all, laura?"

"no," laura says. 

sarah's lips tremble again. "will you come back?" she asks, with a helpless little smile.

"i don't know." 

sarah sighs, and then she takes a long, long drag from the cigarette. laura watches the edges of her mother's fingers shake. it's like her mother's going to blur out of existence one of these days, just rattle apart. 

"you should—you should write," sarah says. she says the words slowly, her lined mouth curling around them awkwardly. "let me know you're okay." 

laura knows her mother is five seconds from shouting that at her, or she would've shouted it, if laura had tried to do this before. _let me know_ you're _okay,_ laura thinks. _just tell me_ i'll _be okay._

"maybe," laura says. "maybe i will. maybe i will be." 

 

laura leaves twin peaks. she takes trains and buses at night, in the darkness where no one else can watch her. she leaves washington state and heads east, stopping when she runs out of money. 

 

laura doesn't know why she applies for a job at a bar, but she does. the atmosphere isn't comforting but it's familiar, and she hopes she can just disappear there, just try to scrape something for herself out of whatever this is. 

the owner looks her up and down. "what do you have to offer?" he asks.

laura thinks about when she would've charmed her way straight into the bar, straight into the job, straight into the owner, how she would've played every single person she could get her hands on, but she doesn't have the energy or the will for it anymore. and then she thinks, _nothing. i have nothing to offer._ because what are her skills, now? what can she do? what did she even do before? _who are you, laura palmer?_

"i don't know," laura says. 

"least you're honest," the owner says. "alright, fine." 

 

she works nights. she gets a small hotel room and spends a whole afternoon channel surfing and letting the noise wash over her, the curtains drawn tight and the lights off and the tv glowing blue against her skin, just to see what it feels like, if it feels like anything. 

 

laura's washing out glasses behind the bar when a man sits down in front of her. he doesn't order anything. he just stares at her, traces the curve of her hair against her shoulder. 

her whole body tenses. she gnaws on the inside of her mouth and looks at her hands, grips the towel tight so her nails dig into it and the fabric rubs into her skin. 

the man looks at her, eyes glazed and his mouth a lopsided grin. he smells like other bars and glistens with sweat. "i've seen you around a lot," he says.

"i work here," laura says, her teeth grinding together. he sounds like leo johnson and looks like jacques renault. she knows how he works, what he wants, what he has. there’s a rushing in her head and her whole body aches. she wants to kill him with her bare hands. 

"what's your name, cutie?"

she quits, right on the spot. 

 

laura cuts her hair so it swings short around her chin, and buys the longest sweaters and wraps herself up in them. she gets another job at a convenience store where no one looks twice at her, and she hopes it's enough. 

 

she still hangs out at bars, just because they're everywhere, they're nowhere, and most of the time no one ever notices she's there. she sits in the back with the shadows and just watches and tries to figure out how people _do it,_ how they want to live when everything around them is so—whatever this is. 

it comes in handy one night. 

there's a girl not much younger than laura, sitting in a booth, being held by a friend. 

"you've gotta tell someone," the friend says.

"i told you."

" _besides_ me. you've gotta—this isn't right, we should do something—"

"do what? who's going to believe me? it's—it's not like i can explain it. like, this _thing's_ after me, this horrible _thing_ in the woods and it watches me and i can't—and why me, huh? why _me_?" 

laura's heart races, her chest heaving as she tries to breathe. 

it shouldn't surprise her, that there are horrible things out there, everywhere, not just in twin peaks. every place has history. every place has demons. literal demons. but she's still shocked to hear it's _real,_ there's something else, there's _someone else living her life._

laura holds herself tight and closes her eyes. she doesn't remember what she did before, what she did to him, but she'll be damned if she doesn't _try it again._

 

she haunts the local bars and clubs, staying in the back, in the shadows, where no one can touch her, and she listens to people talk. she watches their faces when they talk about it, when someone brings it up—the demon in the woods. it makes her skin crawl and her heart slam in her throat but she stays there and makes herself listen. 

it takes her a few weeks, but she figures out where it is, how it operates, and she has herself and that's all when she walks into the forest to find it. 

 

she kills it, and she remembers every single second this time. her bare hands and her willpower and the ring glinting in the darkness when she takes the thing in her hands and pulls it apart like she did with bob. she doesn't know how it works. maybe it's because she has the ring. maybe it's because she's _been there,_ and came out on the other side just as twisted as them. but she really doesn't care. she just does it. 

 

laura doesn't know how they know it was her, but a group of girls—two of them the ones from the bar—find her before she leaves town and thank her. they look like her, a little, or she just sees herself in them, lost and alone. 

if laura was a different person she'd tell them it's not a big deal. but it is, because she knows it is, and she just tells them to watch out for themselves. 

"what's your name?" one of them asks. 

laura thinks about it, because she doesn't know if she wants to say it, and she finds herself remembering what she'd said to donna that one time. _and the angels wouldn't help you, because they've all gone away,_ she'd said. alright, then, laura thinks. that'd have to be her. she just wouldn't go away. she would not go away. she grits her teeth and clenches her hands into fists and thinks _i will not go away._

"laura," she says, louder than she has in months. "laura palmer." 

 

she does it again, and again, in different towns and different places, and it doesn't hurt her anymore to do it. 

laura doesn't know what this feels like. it's not what she thinks life is supposed to feel like, but it's not the gaping emptiness that had stabbed at her every single moment she was in twin peaks. 

 

they start to know her name. demons, humans, all of them. they whisper it in the darkness, in the woods, like a curse, like a prayer. laura doesn't hear it, but she knows it's there. it makes her feel a little real. 

 

things still scare her. it's been a year, and things still scare her. laura doesn't know if that's okay. she can't stand long hair, denim jackets, the color red, certain men, certain smells. sometimes she sees a picture of a mountain or too many trees and her heart speeds up, even. it all makes her hands shake and she finds herself crying over her lunch that she barely eats sometimes. 

sometimes she wants to feel her hands against someone else's skin but then the thought of it is simultaneously too horrifying for her to handle, after everything. laura wonders if she'll ever— _love again_ sounds stupid and like something donna would say, for goodness sake. and she doesn't have time for that right now, anyway. she doesn't have time to try to figure out how to handle all of that. 

_be okay enough,_ is what she settles on, early one morning, wiping the tears off her cheeks. _i want to be okay enough. good enough._

 

she still tries not to think about twin peaks. 

 

laura finds herself in philadelphia. she's on the trail of a demon with a darkness around it that worries her, and she doesn't like it. 

she gets the hotel room and seeks out some low-key diner, because sometimes she honestly wants to eat and this is one of those times. she still feels uncomfortable ordering too much. she doesn't know what she wants, what she'd like, what she thinks would be okay. 

she sips at her water and looks around the diner. it's small and quiet and there's only two other people in there, two men sitting across from each other, wearing crisp black suits and arguing over what looks like the three slices of pie that one of them ordered. then she looks at their faces. one of them looks not so much angry but fondly irritated, as if this happens all the time, and the other one, eating the pie with a calm, peaceful expression— 

_i know him,_ laura thinks, gripping her glass tighter so her hands won't shake. _i know that face._ she'd seen it in her dreams, the night before what she did in twin peaks. he was in a red room with a jagged floor, which means he can't be real, he can't be right, he has to be _another one_. she's going to scream, right there, in the diner, she's going to fall apart. 

his eyes meet hers, and he puts his fork down. 

laura bites down hard on the inside of her mouth as her whole body trembles. 

 

federal bureau of investigation special agent dale cooper, meanwhile, immediately understands everything, because that's the kind of person he is. he's seen that woman's face before, in a strange dream that wasn't much stranger than any other dream he's had, really. but it stood out to him, her face and her quiet smile and the heavy, startling weight of the air in the room. he knew and could feel the darkness of that weight. 

(and if he had another dream, where he was trapped in that horror for year upon year and her face was the only thing he knew for sure in the midst of an almost-constant, almost gnawing laughter, a laughter he also heard in dreams as a child, well, he's certainly never told anyone.) 

he'd had a thought at the time, that maybe she was the victim he'd envisioned after teresa banks died, but he looked through every single file in the bureau and hadn't found her face. until now, across the diner, looking at him with wild eyes. cooper is so relieved she's alive but he doesn't want to frighten her. she's overcome so much, so much he doesn't know, but he has to talk to her. 

"you have that look on your face again," albert rosenfield says, in a tone of long-suffering. "the one you get when you're about to do something stupid." 

"i know," cooper says. 

"well, at least you're becoming self-aware."

cooper stands. "please wait for me outside, albert." 

 

the man gets up and walks over to laura. she breathes fast through her nose, her eyes darting back and forth between his. he doesn't feel like any of the others. he doesn't look like them either. he looks kind and worried, but that doesn't mean he _isn't_ just as bad. there's a cold horror spreading down her spine that she doesn't like, so she doesn't like him. 

he extends his hand. "special agent dale cooper," he says. he smiles, just a little bit. 

laura doesn't shake it. 

"may i sit down?" he asks, lowering his hand. 

laura frowns up at him, gripping her glass again. she can feel her shoulders shaking. she grinds her teeth together. "why?" 

"i'd like to buy you breakfast," agent cooper says. "if that's alright with you." 

"you don't know me," she says. 

agent cooper smiles. "may i ask your name?"

"laura palmer," she says, and she wants to scream it so everyone hears, she's _laura palmer_ and she's going to tear everyone apart if they're not careful, if they don't stay away from her, she didn't go through hell to get pulled back in because she wasn't on her guard. 

"miss palmer—"

" _laura._ " 

"laura." he sits down across from her. "do you think it's possible for two people to know each other, even though they've never met before? to have an acute understanding of the other's life because, perhaps, in another, they would have met for certain, one way or another, and helped each other? and that in this lifetime, if they happen to meet, something strange but wonderful could happen?"

there is the tiniest of creases between his eyes when he talks to her, a tension laura has seen in her own eyes. he doesn't feel wrong. he doesn't look at her with anger or lust. she doesn't get that twist in her throat she feels when she looks at a monster. a regular guy. that's all he is, just a regular guy, not a demon or a joke, just someone who looks and sounds like he's seen what laura has and more. she feels sorry for him, a pity that makes her want to cry, but she also wants him to keep talking. 

she twists her hands together in her lap, the line of her shoulders still pulled tight. "i don't know," she says. 

"i think it's an interesting possibility to think about," agent cooper continues. "the infinity of space, the relationships of individuals. the multitude of possibilities, and their intersections. what we take from one part of our lives to the next." 

"what have you taken?" laura asks. 

agent cooper looks startled for a moment, as if he hadn't expected her to ask. then he smiles. "the knowledge that there is so much more that i can do, that i will do, to help," he says. "and you, laura?"

"i don't know," she says quickly. "or—i don't know, yet." 

his smile widens. "how about that breakfast?" he picks up the menu to look it over again, even though laura knows he's already looked at it. "the cherry pie is particularly excellent," agent cooper says. "i'm afraid that's the most experience that i have with the food here, but i think it works as a good baseline for anything else." 

laura swallows. she still doesn't know what she wants. all this time, and she still can't order something in a diner? _damn, laura,_ she thinks. _what would donna say?_

but she knows exactly what donna would say. 

"a muffin," laura says. "i want a muffin."

agent cooper's smile is almost blinding this time. "a muffin it is, then." he calls the waitress over and tells her with much more enthusiasm than is really necessary what laura wants. 

"we only have huckleberry today," the waitress says. "that okay?" 

"that's fine," laura says. 

agent cooper orders another slice of pie. the waitress comes back a little later and sets down the pie and the muffin. laura stares down at it. then she frowns and picks the whole muffin apart. 

she finds the remains of eight whole huckleberries. 

laura really almost laughs, this time, and she eats them all, one by one. 

 

agent cooper and agent rosenfield are tracking the same demon. agent cooper doesn't come right out and say it—laura thinks he can't—but she knows they're after it, and agent cooper knows she's after it too. 

"the fbi does things like that?" laura asks. "fight demons?" 

"from time to time," agent cooper says. "i get the feeling it's something you do as well." he gives her a knowing look. 

the corner of laura's mouth twitches up, just for a second. "from time to time," she says. 

agent cooper takes a bite of his third slice of pie. "if it's not too personal a question," he begins, "can i ask how you do it?" 

laura looks down at her hands, her fingers still sticky from the muffin. she rubs them along the condensation on her water glass. "i don't know," she says. "i just—i don't even know how i did it the first time." she closes her eyes and immediately sees _his face,_ the way his jaw would move and crack as he laughed, and she forces her eyes open wide. "i grabbed hold of him," she whispers, "and tore him apart." she frowns and pulls her sleeves of her sweater down over her knuckles. "what about you?"

agent cooper looks at her with a quiet curiosity. "there are other ways of doing it," he says. "to destroy darkness with darkness is to feed into it. to help it become something lighter is to overcome it. if these things are the evil that men do, then that evil has to go somewhere.” 

laura digs her nails into her palms, and she feels afraid, truly afraid, for the first time in a while. "there are some things you can't," she says. "what if there are some things you can't overcome?" 

he doesn’t have an answer for her. if anything, he looks a little afraid too. 

laura swallows hard and changes the subject. “so do you want my help or not?” 

agent cooper clears his throat. "laura, while i respect you and your abilities and your knowledge, at the end of the day you are still considered a civilian and i would be remiss if i put you in any danger. however, i would appreciate any general assistance you could—”

"you won't get to that demon without me," laura says. "you won't be able to stop it without me." it's the one thing, the only thing she feels confident in. 

“if something happened to you—”

“i can take care of myself,” she insists. she twists the ring hard around her finger and stares him down. 

he looks like he wants to say no. he’s going to say no, laura knows it. her heart pounds in her chest, a frantic rhythm that reminds her she’s here, and she won’t let anyone take that from her. 

something pinches in his face and then softens. he sighs. 

 

agent cooper likes to talk to her. he likes to take her out to breakfast and talk. laura doesn't do much talking, but she doesn't mind listening to him. she enjoys it. 

sometimes they talk about the case, the demon. it's slow-going, this one, and neither of them have found anything concrete yet. mostly, agent cooper likes to talk about ducks. he pulls polaroids of ducks out of his wallet. agent rosenfield joins them reluctantly for breakfast one morning and tells her about the numerous times agent cooper has braked for a family of geese. laura almost smiles. she wonders how agent cooper does it. how he's seen so much darkness and hasn't let it touch him, how he can still smile like he does. he's okay enough. what has he done that laura hasn't? 

"tell me about where you're from," agent cooper says one day.

laura shrugs, uncomfortable. "it's a small town in washington, near the canadian border." she shoves her hands into her pockets. she thinks without wanting to of jacques renault's cabin in the woods, and chews hard on the inside of her mouth. "lots of trees," she mutters. 

"what kind of trees?" agent cooper asks, sounding interested.

"i don't know," laura says, quicker than she wants. "they're just trees." but they weren't just trees to her, they were eyes and secrets and she didn't feel safe in them, and she doesn't want to think about it now. she ran away so she wouldn't have to. "i don't want to talk about it." 

agent cooper is quiet for a long time. "fear is a powerful thing," he says. "it's unwise to let it consume you."

"i know!" laura shouts. there's still so much she doesn't know, but she knows _that_ for sure, she stared fear right in the face and didn't let it kill her. she killed it instead, and she'll keep killing it, tearing it apart, over and over, as long as it takes until it's all _gone_ and she's safe. 

agent cooper is still calm, still quiet, and laura suddenly hates that look on his face. 

"i'm _not_ afraid of it," she whispers. 

"what are you afraid of?" agent cooper asks gently. 

laura glares at him. "what are _you_ afraid of?" 

agent cooper answers with only minimal pausing. "that i will be consumed by my own fear. that what i do, and what i am, is not enough, and will never be enough." 

and what is she afraid of? _that i'll never be okay,_ laura thinks. _i'll never be enough, either. i'll never hold something i can call my own. i'll be alone forever because no one will love me, no one could, even i couldn't._ and she could do it, she could survive. but she's done that all her life. she's come so close to living, and she _wants it,_ she wants it more than anything else. 

"how do you do it?" she asks. 

"i am under no illusion that it is easy," agent cooper says, "and if i gave you that impression at all, then i'm sorry, laura." he looks sad. it's a strange look on him. "there are some things i wish i hadn't taken with me. but i'm stuck with them. i try to do what i can, and at times it is harder than others." 

"how do you know it's worth it?"

"i don't." he smiles slowly. "but i like to believe it is." 

 

laura lets herself think about twin peaks. it's a scary thing, her memories of that town, but it's what she has, like it or not. 

she thinks about donna, and wonders how she is. if donna's with james or not, and laura sort of hopes she isn't. what james is even doing, if he's grown up at all. how bobby's doing with shelly, if he's okay, if shelly's okay. what ronette is up to, if she still sees leo and jacques. laura hopes not, because there are better people out there for ronette. if audrey's sorted out her problems. if her parents— 

there aren't that many memories of her parents that haven't been tainted and twisted and pulled apart. but she digs through them all and remembers them dancing, the way her mother would laugh and how her father would smile. 

she hopes her parents still dance. 

 

agent cooper finds the demon. 

 

laura tells him that she'll handle it. agent cooper insists they handle it together, which laura immediately refuses. they go back and forth for longer than the average breakfast as laura tries to get him to let her do it alone. she has to do it alone. this one, for sure. she's been thinking about what agent cooper said and she needs to _do something,_ and this is how she's going to do it. 

ultimately, agent cooper tells agent rosenfield that he and laura will handle it, and agent rosenfield looks less than pleased about it. he spends what laura thinks is longer than necessary glaring at her while he lights a cigarette. she gets the impression that he doesn't like much of anything, except agent cooper, because he lets them do it.

then agent cooper, who says it's against his better judgment but understands why laura wants to do it, lets her do it alone. 

"wait for me," laura tells him, before she walks into the woods. everything is washed in cool red from the sunset, and she twists the ring around her finger again. 

"without a doubt," agent cooper replies. 

 

laura thinks all of them, all the demons, look like bob, a little. in some way or another. they all do. they're all different, but they're all sharp and horrifying and she still sees his face, every time. she holds it tight and closes her eyes. the darkness is heavy on her skin, in her mouth. she knows that weight, that darkness. 

_don't be afraid._

she's been that darkness. she _is_ that darkness, maybe, twisted up and hurt and wrong. she still hurts so much. it's hard to get up and it's hard to fight and it's hard to do anything. 

but it's enough. 

laura opens her eyes and stares it down and tells herself she is stronger than it, than anything, and she starts to believe herself. there is a darkness, and there will always be a darkness, but she and her presence are _enough_ and she will live every day staring it down until it's so small it doesn't even matter. there will always be monsters, but there will always be laura palmer. 

_i will not go away._

the ring sparkles bright on her hand, and the demon bursts into nothing. its screams echo and laura’s don’t. 

 

agent cooper looks ridiculously pleased, and agent rosenfield just looks like he wants to leave town as quickly as possible. it's a nice sight, the two of them. laura will miss them.

"laura palmer," agent cooper says, "it has been an honor to work with you." 

laura smiles and lets herself be pulled into a genuine hug for the first time in a long time. agent cooper smells like pine trees and laundry detergent, and she buries her face into his jacket and holds on. 

"what are you going to do now?" he asks. 

 

laura picks up a postcard. 

_donna—_

_had a muffin with eight whole huckleberries.  
and counting. _

_love,  
laura _

**Author's Note:**

> what did i just write? what did we all just read? what is twin peaks even about, anymore? damned if i know.  
> I have a [tumblr.](https://whoslaurapalmer.tumblr.com)  
> 


End file.
